Compliance teams keep asking for "the ECGT fine," as if one number applied across the bloc. It doesn't. The directive that banned vague labels like "eco-friendly" and offset-based "carbon neutral" claims amends consumer law that each member state enforces, and penalises, on its own terms. Below is what the law actually requires, what four national regulators have already fined companies for, and where the real exposure sits once a claim crosses a border.
How EU greenwashing penalties actually work
Directive (EU) 2024/825, the Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition directive (ECGT), was adopted on 28 February 2024 and entered into force on 26 March 2024. Member states had to transpose it by 27 March 2026, and its bans on generic claims, offset-based neutrality claims and unverified sustainability labels have applied to every trader, with no small-business exemption, since 27 September 2026.
The ECGT itself sets no fines. It amends the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (UCPD), and penalties run through Article 13 UCPD, which only requires that national sanctions be "effective, proportionate and dissuasive." The one hard number in the text covers a narrow situation: when a case is handled as a coordinated cross-border action under Article 21 of the Consumer Protection Cooperation Regulation (EU) 2017/2394, national law must allow a maximum fine of at least 4% of the trader's turnover in the member states concerned, or at least €2 million where turnover data is unavailable. That is a floor on the maximum fine for coordinated cases, not a minimum fine for every greenwashing claim.
Article 13(2) lists what regulators must weigh before setting an actual penalty: the nature, gravity, scale and duration of the infringement; any remedial action the trader already took; previous infringements; the financial benefit gained or losses avoided; and, in cross-border cases, penalties already imposed on the same trader for the same infringement elsewhere in the EU. Beyond fines, Article 11(2) lets authorities order a practice to stop, or prohibit it before it runs, and, where national law provides it, publish the decision with a corrective statement. Article 11a adds consumer remedies: compensation, a price reduction or contract termination.
Confiscating revenue and barring a company from public procurement for up to 12 months are sometimes described as ECGT sanctions. They are not: both came from the Commission's separate 2023 Green Claims Directive proposal, which the Commission announced its intention to withdraw on 20 June 2025.
Four member states, four enforcement models
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Transposition timelines and enabling legislation still vary by country — see our ECGT enforcement timeline by member state for the full schedule — but four countries already have enforcement records specific enough to plan against.
| Country | Enforcer | Penalty basis (source) |
|---|---|---|
| France | DGCCRF investigates; courts impose the penalty | Consumer Code Art. L132-2: base of 2 years' imprisonment and €300,000, raised to up to 10% of average turnover or 50% of the advertising spend — 80% specifically for environmental claims |
| Netherlands | Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) | Administrative fines of up to €900,000 per violation for unfair commercial practices |
| Germany | Verbraucherzentralen and competitors, via the civil courts | No administrative fine regime; injunctions under the UWG, which implements the UCPD |
| Italy | AGCM (Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato) | Administrative fines under national unfair-practices law; €5 million against ENI (case PS11400, 2020) |
France: criminal exposure, not just an administrative fine
France treats misleading commercial practices, including environmental ones, as a criminal matter under Article L132-2 of the Consumer Code. The DGCCRF investigates and refers cases; the penalty itself — up to two years in prison and a €300,000 fine, or a turnover- or spend-based fine that climbs to 80% of the advertising budget specifically for environmental claims — is imposed by the courts, not the regulator.
Netherlands: settlements over court fights
The ACM can fine up to €900,000 per violation without going to court, but its highest-profile sustainability cases have ended in binding commitments instead. In 2022, H&M committed to adjust its sustainability claims and donated €500,000 to a sustainability cause rather than contest a fine. Separately, on 20 March 2024 the Amsterdam District Court ruled that 15 of 19 KLM advertising statements about Sustainable Aviation Fuel and reforestation were misleading (ECLI:NL:RBAMS:2024:1512). The ECGT bans reach Dutch companies through the same consumer-law framework the ACM already enforces.
Germany: private enforcement, not a regulator with a fine book
Germany has no administrative authority that fines companies for misleading green claims. Enforcement runs through competitors and consumer associations (Verbraucherzentralen), who seek injunctions in the civil courts under the UWG, the law that implements the UCPD domestically. The bar those courts set is real: in its "klimaneutral" ruling of 27 June 2024 (I ZR 98/23), the Federal Court of Justice held that an ambiguous term like "climate neutral" is misleading unless the advertisement itself explains what it means — a link or a QR code elsewhere does not count, and offsetting cannot be presented as equivalent to reduction.
Italy: an early fine that predates the ECGT
Italy's AGCM fined ENI €5 million in January 2020 (case PS11400) for misleading environmental claims in its "ENIdiesel+" advertising campaign, one of Europe's earliest high-profile greenwashing fines, issued years before the ECGT existed.
Other member states enforce the same UCPD framework through their own national authorities and procedures. For the fuller country list, see our EU and global penalty comparison, and for how a fine is actually calculated once a case is opened, our guide to ECGT penalties and fines.
Cross-border cases and the CPC network
A claim published on a website reachable from multiple member states can, in principle, be checked by more than one national authority. In practice, the EU's Consumer Protection Cooperation (CPC) network coordinates these cases so authorities do not duplicate each other — and it is this coordinated-action route, not a standalone EU fine, that triggers the 4% turnover floor described above.
The model has a track record. The Commission's first greenwashing-focused screening, published on 28 January 2021, examined 344 suspect claims in detail after a broader sweep of online shops, and found that in 42% of cases authorities had reason to believe the claim was false or exaggerated enough to count as an unfair commercial practice (European Commission, January 2021). Expect the same screen-then-coordinate pattern now that the bans themselves are in force.
What regulators actually weigh
None of the four countries above hands out the maximum penalty automatically. Article 13(2) UCPD points regulators toward the same handful of questions, and the answers set the real difference between a warning letter and a seven-figure fine:
- How serious, how large in scale, and how long-running the claim was
- Whether the trader pulled the claim and fixed it before being forced to
- Whether the same company has been caught before
- What the company gained, or what consumers lost, because of the claim
- In cross-border cases, what other member states have already imposed for the same infringement
The honest takeaway is that the single EU-level number everyone quotes, 4%, rarely decides a real case. National procedure does: which authority opens the file, whether it prefers a settlement to a court fight, and how fast the company drops the claim once asked.
Fix it before a regulator asks
Article 13(2) UCPD counts remedial action in the trader's favour. Check your current wording against the ECGT's prohibited terms in our banned green terms guide, work through the ECGT compliance guide for documentation requirements, and scan your website with our free Green Claims Scanner to flag the highest-risk pages before anyone else does.